Valve gets generous and creative with Alien Swarm and Team Fortress 2

Play Alien Swarm for free, get a free (virtual) hat. Who doesn't love free?

Shares

Alien Swarm began as a community-created mod for Unreal Tournament, but went much further. The guys at Valve liked it so much that they hired the modders and turned it into a full game. And what’s better, they’veput it up for downloadon Steam for free.

Hats off to Valve, honestly, because the last free game that I personally played was Euchre on Pogo.com, so to have a full-featured alien shoot-em-up game that is completely 100% no-strings-attached free is pretty darn cool (unlike a 20-something guy who spends his spare time playing Euchre online).

But wait! There's more! Anyone who plays through two cooperative missions in Alien Swarm will get an exclusive item when they buy Team Fortress 2 through Steam. The gift? An "alien parasite hat" to deck out their in-game character. Now if that doesn't scream awesome fashion statement, I don't know what does.